Stop Don't Quit

How to Stop Smoking? Need Help Quitting Smoking? I say stop, don't quit. Searching for the best way to quit smoking? Looking for tips to quit? Need a proven method? What if it was really simple? There is no easy way to quit smoking! There is a simple way though and there is a difference. This blog will be a conversation for you and non smokers alike to find the answers along with my book, "How to Stop Smoking Without Killing Anyone."

Welcome to The Stop Don't Quit Blog

This is your blog. I am a smoker who has stopped smoking. Regardless of where you are at in your smoking career, this blog is dedicated to you and your mission to stop. How you got here is irrelevant, what matters is that you are here and whether you like it or not, it's time to kick the habit before it leads to you kicking the bucket! I have written a book on the subject called How to Stop Smoking Without Killing Anyone and this blog is the companion piece. It is a place where you can join in the conversation of getting past the smoking addiction and then all addiction once and for all and add years and quality to your life. Thank you for being here. Enjoy, Participate, Grow and Learn!

Sunday, November 9, 2014

A new study released by the University of Haifa shows that taking omega-3 supplements lowers the craving for nicotine and even reduces the number of cigarettes that people smoke in a day

"The findings of this study indicated that omega-3, an inexpensive and easily available dietary supplement with almost no side effects, reduces smoking significantly," said Dr Sharon Rabinovitz Shenkar

Cigarette smoking is already tied to cardiovascular dysfunction, immune system dysfunction and

This current study used 48 smokers between the ages of 18 - 45. The subjects were smoking at least 10 cigarettes a day and were at an average of 14. They were diagnosed as having a "moderate" dependency on nicotine. Sounds like addiction to me, but what do I know? The smokers in the study had an average age of 29 and had all been smoking for at least 10 years.

The smokers were split into two groups. One group got omega-3 capsules, the second group received a placebo.

The victims participants were asked to take 5 capsules a day for 30 days and at no time were they asked to stop smoking. The levels of nicotine craving and consumption were checked using a series of scales regarding various aspects related to smoking urges, such as lack of control over tobacco use, anticipation of relief and satisfaction from smoking, and to the number of cigarettes smoked each day.

These levels were measured at the start of the study, then 30 days after the start of the treatment and then once more after 60 days.

During the study when the participants were tested, they had them abstain from smoking for 2 hours and then were exposed to smoking-related cues and images in order to fire up the cravings for nicotine.

The findings showed that while no difference was found between the groups at the beginning of the study, after thirty days the smokers who had taken omega-3 reduced their cigarettes by an average of two a day (an eleven-per cent decrease), even though they were not asked to change their smoking habits in any way.

After another 30 days of not taking anything, cigarette cravings did increase slightly but, and this is the important part, still remained significantly lower than at the initial level.

What this means is that the craving to smoke cigarettes did not return to the baseline original level even a month after not taking the supplement.

The researchers reported that the group receiving the placebo did not show any significant changes either way in their craving levels or in the number of cigarettes they smoked a day during the sixty days.

Thursday, November 6, 2014

(Reuters Health) - Menthol cigarettes might taste better than regular tobacco but are no safer and might lead to more severe lung problems, a new study suggests.

Smokers who reported using menthol cigarettes had more trips to the emergency room and more hospitalizations or treatment for severe worsening of their lung disease compared to people smoking regular tobacco, the study found.

These worsenings, or “exacerbations,” might include difficulty breathing or a major increase in phlegm that lasts for days.

“We were surprised that menthol smokers, compared to non-menthol cigarette smokers, reported more severe exacerbations and had a greater odds of experiencing severe exacerbations,” said Dr. Marilyn Foreman of the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, one of the study authors, in an email to Reuters Health.

She and her colleagues compared 3,758 menthol smokers and 1,941 regular smokers, ages 45 to 80, who smoked at least 10 packs of cigarettes per year. The menthol smokers were slightly younger and more likely to be female and black, they found.

At first glance, it seemed that the menthol smokers had less chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and they were less likely to have chronic cough or chronic sputum production and less likely to use medications to help them breathe.

Overall, the two groups had similar frequencies of COPD exacerbations during the average 18-month period of the study, according to the report of the study in the journal Respirology.

But the menthol smokers had more frequent severe exacerbations: 0.22 per year, versus 0.18 per year among smokers of regular tobacco cigarettes.

The menthol smokers also did worse on a test of how far they could walk in six minutes, and they were more short of breath than people who smoked regular cigarettes.

When the researchers took other patient factors into account, such as age and other diseases, there were no longer any differences between the menthol and regular tobacco smokers in lung function, exercise capacity, or breathing problems.

There was still, however, a 29 percent higher risk of severe lung disease exacerbations with use of menthol cigarettes.

The researchers think menthol might have an anesthetic effect on the airways, and as a result, it might take longer to recognize that smokers’ lung disease is worsening, said Foreman.

She and her colleagues admit, though, that their study can’t prove menthol is responsible for making smokers’ lung problems worse.

“In general in the article, the people who smoked menthol cigarettes were different, younger, more likely to be African-American and female,” Dr. Sean Forsythe said in a phone interview with Reuters Health. “So maybe the differences weren’t due to menthol but were due to the fact that the patients were different.”

Forsythe, who is division director of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois, said that while exacerbations appeared to be worse for the menthol smokers, only a longer study could say for sure.

“That’s the type of thing where only following these patients for a year and a half is going to become a bit misleading,” said Forsythe, who wasn’t involved with Foreman’s study. “If you’re looking for some of these bigger outcomes in the COPD world, maybe you need to follow them longer,” he added.

Foreman pointed out frequent exacerbations might end up having a long-term effect.

“Frequent exacerbations do affect quality of life and may result in greater loss of lung function over time,” said Foreman.

There are 600 ingredients in cigarettes that create more than 7,000 chemicals when burned, according to the American Lung Association. Sixty-nine of these chemicals causes cancer. Some of the chemicals and the places you might routinely find them include:

• Acetone — nail polish remover

• Acetic acid — hair dye

• Ammonia — household cleaners

• Arsenic — rat poison

• Benzene — rubber cement

• Butane — lighter fluid

• Cadmium — battery acid

• Carbon monoxide — car exhaust fumes

• Formaldehyde — embalming fluid

• Hexamine — lighter fluid

• Lead — batteries

• Naphthalene — moth balls

• Methanol — rocket fuel

• Nicotine — insecticides

• Tar — used for paving roads

• Toluene — paint

For those who claim that e-cigarettes are not as harmful, please consider that:

• In February, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention reported 215 calls to the poison center related to e-cigarettes. The Federal Drug Administration also has reports of hospitalizations resulting in pneumonia, congestive heart failure, seizures, hypotension, disorientation and other health problems related to e-cigarettes.

• In September, Dateline NBC reported e-cigarette use by American high school students with Cloud 9, a synthetic drug sold at gas stations. It elicits heart attack symptoms and is responsible for many hospitalizations.

• The World Health Organization is currently recommending a ban on indoor use of e-cigarettes, as well as sales and advertising targeting youth. E-cigarette devices expel nicotine, formaldehyde, nickel, acrolein and other harmful substances.

• Hookah bar devices expel nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide and other carcinogens, which cause cancer. Many of the devices have more nicotine and release more carbon monoxide and smoke than cigarettes. Improperly cleaned, these devices spread communicable diseases.

In summary, there is no healthy smoking device. They all cause cancer. In order to stop this epidemic we must become smarter consumers, both for those we love and for ourselves. Smoking not only affects the smoker; it affects anyone that takes in secondhand smoke, and every person near and dear to the smoker who will deal with the deathly consequences.

The next time you think you want to smoke, ask yourself if you would consume any of the aforementioned chemicals. I doubt you will say yes.

#WTF? That's right. What. The. Fuck. How does this possibly help? Can we confuse people even more?

First off, if you ask me, e-cigarettes are nothing more than a scam. It's a delivery device for nicotine. It's no different than a regular cigarette except it MAY be better on your body. MAY. We really don't know. What we do know is that it's another method of perpetuating and profiting from addiction at the extreme risk of other's health.

Yes, I am incredibly biased. I have a book I am selling for profit that I wrote and published to help people conquer their addiction to nicotine.

Why did I write the book? Because it was incredibly hard for me to stop smoking. I tried to quit like 5 times. Failed miserably. When I finally figured it out it was like getting hit by a bolt of lightning and I wanted to share it with as many people as possibly.

It is possible to stop and to stop cold turkey and succeed. It starts with having the right attitude and mindset and it also start when you stop looking for the easy way to quit. There's no short cut, there's no magic pill, no quick fix.

So when I see headlines like this that just confuse the would be non-smokers it drives me nuts. If you smoke you are struggling with multiple addictions but the big one, the one that's keeping you stuck is the nicotine addiction. The sooner you get off that and rid your body's dependence on it the better. E-cigarettes ultimately will not cure your addiction to nicotine. YOU will cure your addiction. On your own. The power of your thoughts is more powerful than you give credit. Take back your power. Stop today.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

The number of middle and high-school students who have tried so-called “e-cigarettes” has tripled in the past three years, and is doubling the number of youth who say they will begin smoking regular cigarettes too, according to a new survey.

The study from the 2011-2013 National Youth Tobacco Survey, released Monday in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research, showed that the number of middle and high-schoolers who’ve tried e-cigarettes, but never conventional cigarettes, shot up to 263,000 in 2013, up from 79,000 in 2011. Even more significant, almost half of those kids surveyed said they planned to smoke regular cigarettes within a year.

The study is likely to add pressure on the Food and Drug Administration to begin regulating those tobacco-like products.

Anti-smoking advocates like the American Lung Association said that study shows “e-cigarette use among youth will be kids on a lifelong addition to nicotine and tobacco products,” according to Harold Wimmer, national president of the ALA. He called on the Obama administration and the FDA to finalize new regulation to control use of e-cigarettes by the end of 2014 “so that we do not lose another generation of kids to tobacco-caused death and disease.”

Federal laws prohibit traditional cigarettes from being marketed to people under 18 years old, but there are no federal limits for e-cigarette makers. Unlike tobacco products, e-cigarettes carry no child-warning labels.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Searching e-cigarettes on Twitter will surely do one very specific thing. Confuse the crap out of you! Look at this picture. Huffington Post says the vapor juice can increase your chances of getting a really hard to beat staph infection while Reuters says it's a great way to quit. Both of these should fall under the hashtag WTF. Allow me to weigh in on this one. Forget all you think you know about the e-cigarette for a second and let's put some attention on traditional cigarettes; you know the one's with actual tobacco. Habitual and consistent smoking of tobacco cigarettes will lead to an early death. Period. Usually the early death comes with severe pain and suffering as well. Sure, someone's Grandmother smoked and lived to be 82 and her heart stopped one night while she slept. Consider this. How long would she have gone if she hadn't smoked first of all and secondly, YOU are not that woman. Those lucky few are exceptions to the rule and we seek them out to provide us comfort and to avoid the reality that continuing this habit will lead us to an early grave.

Contemplating our own mortality is never easy. We tend to create a mindset where we don't have to look it square in the eye. Look at the marketing done by cigarette companies from the get go. They were glamorous and showed people living. Celebrities endorsed them, movies used them, doctors and opera singers were paid to recommend certain brands, tobacco companies gave cigarettes to the troops during both world wars. Nothing about their advertising speaks of an early death wrought with pain and disease. Rather, tobacco companies put up images like the Marlboro Man and Virginia Slims show progressive women. They want you to feel ALIVE when you smoke, not setting yourself up for a bad exit. Following me so far?

Now, what is happening right now in the world of the electronic cigarette? The call it an e-cigarette. Makes it sound totally harmless. Like e-mail or e-commerce. And now, you don't smoke an e-cigarette, you vape. Because it's just vapor. Right? Harmless. Right? Sure... I guess. And that's the problem isn't it? We're guessing for now... just like 100 years ago. What else is similar? Celebrity endorsements? Freedom themed marketing? A healthy alternative?

At the end of the day, either way, you're rolling the dice. At the end of the day you still wind up addicted to nicotine. When the smoke settles (pun intended) you must recognize that every time you light up, electronic or otherwise you are handing over control of your mood, decisions, finances and life to a chemical that is lethal at 30-60 mg in humans, weakens the immune system, elevates blood pressure, messes with your hormones, all kinds of stuff, so while you're not dealing with the tar and smoke from tobacco, you're really just exchanging one set of complications from your addiction for another and yes, you're still addicted. The downside of addiction is for another blog altogether, but nicotine is not good for you no matter how you chose to deliver it to yourself. And you deserve total freedom from it.

While e-cigarettes may make it a little easier to stop smoking tobacco cigarettes and some studies show a moderate advantage over the patch and gum, do you really believe these people want you to quit? Really? They are all drug dealers. Every one of them.